The ability to innovate products, processes and organizations, creating and managing innovation networks to support network of companies, is the key to addressing an industrial system towards significant positions in the global market. In particular, Italian companies have yet to reply, innovating, to the evolving requirements of competitiveness and sustainability, aligned to Industry 4.0 requirements. The emerging challenges of Industrial and Management Engineering require a joint development of the characteristics themes of innovation, to meet the always increasing market needs and the constraints of the social, environmental and technological environment, fueling a sustainable cycle of innovation of smart factories. These themes can be summarized in the following points, objectives of the PhD course: a) standardization of methods for design, analysis, intervention and control of products, processes and organizational structures; b) continuous growth of the innovation level to meet the new challenges of the market; c) transfer of knowledge and its adaptation on an industrial scale, through the involvement of innovation networks; d) acquisition, by organizations and networks, of the results of research and development projects, to increase the demand for innovation and set new evolutionary requirements of products, processes and organizational structures. To enable the innovation cycle being a growth factor and allowing to combine competitiveness and employment, even in areas with an high labor costs, a proactive behavior needs to start today from applied researches that could become industrial practice in the near future. These activities have to expand, to understand the relationships between public and private institutions, evaluating different scenarios of regulation and funding opportunities in order to build a path of progressive integration between the requirements and the needs of different stakeholders. Over the past years, the need for this type of skills rapidly increased at national and international level. As a result of the use and spreading of advanced production processes and services, change management processes, in which innovation plays a leading role, have to be quickly implemented. The capability of recognizing critical issues of the interactions between technologic, strategic, economic and organizational decisions for organizations, can be assigned only to those who has a critical approach in all these different areas. Large and medium-sized businesses are increasingly aware of the revolution coming from the sustainable production in relation to both products and processes. Companies with the ability to control the entire life cycle of products will be able to activate networks to continuously develop these principles. Small businesses, getting advantages from technology transfer, will find a place in the governance model of these network, according to their structural characteristics and distinctive, high value-added competencies. This method of innovation transfer will allow SMEs not to lose weight and visibility in the relationship with bigger companies but also to assume a strategic role in the innovation cycle. The PhD in Industrial and Management Engineering plays an active role in the development of the innovation cycle, going deep into the following fields: - innovation-evolution cycle of products, processes and organizations, in terms of economic, environmental and social sustainability; - techniques of evaluation and transfer to stakeholders of the developed methodologies; - network of companies, harmonizing and governing requirements through models of coordination, collaboration, sharing of risks and rewards; - network of innovation, to meet strategic and tactical competitiveness and sustainability of different organizations; - implementation of pilot projects at various levels. The approach of the PhD course can lead to significant results that support the industrial and economic development process of Industry 4.0, both at a level of individual companies or networks. The PhD Program in Industrial and Management Engineering, giving advanced skills in the field of innovation, meets the need to create a profile of PhDs to act in the areas of research and development, design and management of innovative production and service systems with a vision that ensures the consistency of the technological choice with the business strategies of different industries. In particular, the PhD course will mainly focus on solutions and research path related to Advanced manufacturing solution, Additive manufacturing, Augmented reality & Simulation, Horizontal and vertical integration of operations.